x, 329 pages : 24 cm

The author travels from prehistoric caves to the digital bookstores of today, exploring how and what women have read through the ages and across cultures and civilizations, a history marked by persistent efforts to prevent women from gaining literacy or to censor their reading. She also recounts the counter-efforts of remarkable women -- and some men -- who have fought back. The book introduces frustrated female readers of many different eras: disappointed ancient poetesses, Babylonian princesses calling for women's voices to be heard, rebellious nuns, confidantes questioning Reformation theologians about their writings, famous and infamous wives whose reading provoked their husbands, and nineteenth-century New England mill girls who risked their jobs to smuggle novels into the workplace. In the present-day, the author explores girls' literacy, women's demands for censorship, and the impact of women readers in their new status as the prime movers in the world of reading, as well as the innovations and limits of reading in the twenty-first century

Includes bibliographical references and index

Primitive, goddesses and aristocrats -- Reading in the not-so-dark ages -- History, mystery and copying -- Outside the cloister -- 'To reade such bookes ... my selfe to edyfye' -- Competing for attention -- Answering back -- Books of their own -- Nation-building -- The modern woman reader

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